Triple jumpers Lázaro Martínez and Cristian Nápoles will be the first Cubans to compete in the indoor winter tour of the current year 2024, as their presence at the L’Eure Meeting in Val-de-Reuil, France, has already been confirmed.
Both will make their debut in an event with silver category of the World Athletics Indoor Tour, after a successful 2023 in which they climbed the awards podium at the XIX World Athletics Championships held in Budapest, Hungary, last August.
The two of them, together with Leyanis Pérez and Liadagmis Povea, also in the triple jump, and high jumper Luis Enrique Zayas, have been preparing in Europe for a few days with a view to the upcoming international commitments.
The Cuban Federation of that sport recently informed the press that other competitions in Poland, Italy, Czech Republic and Slovakia are planned for the athletes of the island.
It added that the program is subject to change as new confirmations may appear.
As for Martinez and Napoles, they won the silver and bronze medals, respectively, in the world event held in the Hungarian capital.
Martinez, universal indoor champion in Belgrade, Serbia, in 2022, finished second on the podium with 17.41 meters (m), while his teammate was third with a personal best of 17.40 m, just one centimeter short.
Up to the fifth round, both athletes from the Caribbean nation were 1-2 in the triple jump final, but Hugues Fabrice Zango, from Burkina Faso, went all the way to 17.64 m to win the golden metal.
In the case of Martinez, he avenged what happened a year ago in Eugene, United States, where he was among the 12 finalists, but committed three faults to finish in the last position.
A month earlier in July, Martinez became champion of the XXIV Central American and Caribbean Games in San Salvador, when he went 17.51 m in the fifth attempt, to establish a new record for that event in regional events, breaking the 17.46 m of his compatriot Yohandri Betanzos in Cartagena, Colombia, in 2006.
Nápoles, with 17.11 m in his first attempt, placed second and could not revalidate the title won in Barranquilla 2018.
Then, on November 3, the Guantanamo native celebrated his 26th birthday and a new victory with the gold medal at the Pan American Games in Santiago de Chile, where he won with 17.19 m in his first jumping attempt.
All these achievements, together with being a finalist in the Diamond League in athletics in 2023 and being qualified for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, earned Martínez a place in the group of the 10 best Cuban athletes last year.
